In a bilateral meeting
with the European Commissioner for Taxation and Customs Union, Audit and
Anti-Fraud Mr. Algirdas Semeta, here today, the Union Minister for
Commerce, Industry & Textiles Shri Anand Sharma, highlighted the need
for an early conclusion of ambitious and balanced Bilateral Trade and
Investment Agreement (BTIA) between India and EU. Shri Sharma stressed
the agreement needs to be balanced and should address areas of core
interest to India such as services through Mode 1 and Mode 4,
agricultural market access and disciplining of Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary
(SPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) for translating concessions
into effective market access. He said that this is important both in
terms of optics as well as for obtaining the requisite balance in the
India-EU BTIA.

Shri Sharma emphasised that in mode-1, India would need to be declared
as data secure in order to provide access. The European Union is in the
process of undertaking a study to assess whether India’s laws meet the
EU directive. “It is our clear analysis that our existing law does meet
the required EU standards. We would urge that this issue is sorted out
quickly and necessary comfort in declaring India data secure in overall
sense needs to be given as almost all the major Fortune -500 companies
have trusted India with their critical data”, said Shri Sharma.

With a number of recent reform measures in India, which includes,
opening of multi-brand retail trading sector to foreign investors;
introducing flexibility in conditions for FDI in single brand product
retail trading; allowing FDI in power exchanges; increasing the limit of
FDI in Broadcasting sector; allowing FDI through foreign airlines in
Civil Aviation sector, Shri Sharma emphasised India’s attractiveness as
investment destination in a whole range of sectors from infrastructure
to food processing, renewable energy, clean technology, bio-technology,
health care, among others. He also highlighted that EU being a union of
over 20 countries has strengths in almost all areas in which India needs
investment. “Many countries of the EU are particularly strong in
state-of-art technology development including green and clean technology
for manufacturing industry. Although, the EU accounts for close to 50%
of the technical collaborations approved but there is scope for
enhancing technology transfer in a range of manufacturing activities,”
said Shri Sharma. The cumulative FDI inflows from EU to India are around
USD 44.31 billion (April 2000 to July 2012), while on the other hand,
the Indian direct investments in EU are of the order of about USD 20
billion (April 2004 –October 2009). It should also be noted that the FDI
inflows from April 2011- March 2012, which stood at USD 46.8 billion,
showed an increase of around 35 per cent over the last year.

Shri Sharma also expressed happiness at the growing bilateral relations
with the European Union, which is bound by common values based on a
commitment to democracy, individual rights and sustainable development.
While in 2010, the total trade between India and EU was USD 83.372
billion, it rose to to USD 110.268 billion in 2011. During
January-September 2012 the bilateral trade stood at USD 76.511 billion.

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